Number 50 Berkley Street
by Mistro and Daquiri
Summary: Dean and Sam make a trip to London to destroy a ghost that frightens people to death.
1. London

**Series Title: The Gallavantations of Sam and Dean**

**Story Title: Number 50 Berkley Street**

**Dedications: To our muses -angst/drama (Daquiri), and boredom/humour (Mistro). And for Grady, without whom our hippo would walk quickly. **

"We were sitting in a dusty café in Hicktown, USA. Life was rolling by slower than a sedated hippo walking the plank –"

"Damn it, Sam! What the hell are you doing!" Dean sat up in the motel bed where he had been _trying_ to sleep, and glared over at Sam, who was sitting on the other bed, fiddling with some sort of electronic device. 

Sam looked at his older brother and said, "I'm practicing for when I record our life's story. Doesn't it sound familiar?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Oh, of course. I must have forgotten that we happen to be 1950s private eyes, and– IS THAT MY EMF METER?"

Dean shot out of bed, and snatched the device Sam had been toying with out of his hands. Cradling his precious creation to his chest, he cooed, "Big ol' Sammy didn't hurt you, did he? It's ok, Brenda, the bad man won't come near you anymore."

"_Brenda_?" Sam repeated incredulously. "You _named_ it?"

Dean became flustered and stuttered for a few moments. Finally he found his voice, and burst out with "There's a haunted house in London I think we should check out!" He flinched inwardly, instantly regretting his suggestion to check out the place.

Sam blinked in surprise at Dean's outburst. Then he smiled, knowing full well that his brother hadn't meant to change the topic so drastically. He sure as hell intended to exploit this opportunity, aware that Dean's stubborn nature wouldn't permit him to back out of this one.

Sam shrugged, and said with a self-satisfied grin "Okay, Dean. London it is."

Dean's mouth twisted as an internal battle raged between his anticipation of kicking evil's ass, and his almost-crippling fear of flying. On a plane. Over the ocean. Man, this was _not_ gonna be fun.

"So, are you going tell me what the story is or do I have to wait for it to come out on DVD?" Sam inquired with amusement on his face.

"What?" Dean tore himself out of his self-piteous musings. "Oh, yeah. I heard about this house in London, on Berkley Street, and it's supposed to be frequented by a terrifying spirit. The story goes that once in the mid-1800s, three sailors were desperate for a place to spend the night, so they squatted in an empty house and –"

"Can't think of who's done _that _before…" Sam mumbled under his breath.

Dean continued as if he had never been interrupted. "–and in the middle of the night, they heard something approaching their door. It creaked open, and some huge, dark, formless shape entered and scared the hell out of them. One guy died of fright, right there; another bolted down the stairs, fell, and broke his neck. The last guy stayed coherent long enough to tell the cops what he saw, but went insane shortly afterwards. Sounds like something right up our alley." Dean hoped, however futilely, that Sam would change his mind about going, even though he knew it wasn't going to happen.

His hopes were completely crushed when his brother said cheerfully, "Okay, then. I'll phone and get the tickets!"

* * *

Dean rocked back and forth in his seat on the airplane, humming Metallica and occasionally muttering to himself, "I'm on a plane to London. I'm on a _plane _to London..."

Finally Sam threw down his book in exasperation, "Okay, this was _your _idea, so if you're going to act like a crazy weirdo the entire flight, I want to get off this plane** now**!"

(You may have guessed that they haven't taken off yet. Sam was not volunteering to jump out of the plane.)

"I know this was my idea," Dean muttered, "but you could've talked me out of it. Or at the very least suggested a different mode of transportation."

Sam scoffed, "Such as?"

Dean shrugged, wild-eyed, "I don't know. Boat?"

Sam snorted, "Right. Because we happen to be European settlers from the 17th century."

Dean glared at him, but Sam couldn't stop his teasing.

"Are you worried that a demon's possessed one of these people and he's going to crash the plane? Because if that's it, I happen to have a bottle of holy water with me. We could pretend it's perfume and walk up and down the aisles asking passengers if they would like to try on the new scent, _Essence of Christo_. Then we'll spray 'em with it."

Dean sat up a little straighter in his chair. "Don't use that insolent tone with me!"

"Ooooh. 'Insolent'. Big word coming from a drop-out."

"Nerd," Dean shot back.

"Jock,"

"Bitch!" Every passenger on the plane turned to stare at Dean, who promptly started to turn red.

"Umm..." he gave a nervous little cough, "We were just trying to decide what gender of dog we want to buy."

This merely earned him a few quizzical shakes of the head.

"Nice one, Dean," Sam's voice was simply oozing with sarcasm.

"Shut up. Bitch."

"Can't you think of anything more creative to say?"

"Fine. Slut."

They spent the rest of the flight in huffy silence.

* * *

"This is it," Dean said, waving an indicating hand towards the quaint little duplex, "The first floor is now a book store. The second floor is the residence of a freaky, evil spirit."

Dean's eyes were alight with the thrill of the hunt. He had quite forgotten his earlier argument with his brother. Sam, however, had filed away the incident in the back of his mind, to be used in future conflicts.

"This doesn't look like a normal site to be haunted," said Sam, his eyes taking in the small brick buildings, children running on the cobblestone street, and smiling adults going about their daily routines. He couldn't _believe _he had flown all the way to London for a dud of a ghost story. This was all Dean's fault.

Dean shoved Sam towards the entrance of Number 50, Berkley Street. A bell tinkled as they opened the door to the small bookshop. Making his way towards the back shelves – the ones farthest from the ancient little salesman sitting behind the desk and staring at the cash register – Dean whispered, "And what exactly is 'a normal site to be haunted'? Graveyards and Indian caves? Seems to me most of the freaks we hunt prefer white-washed houses in suburbia to run-down old huts on the wrong side of the tracks."

Seeing that Dean was right (and refusing to acknowledge it), Sam decided to drop the subject.

"Ahem," a dry, cracked voice spoke softly behind them, "Is there anything I can help you with?"

The brothers spun around to face the wizened old man who looked after the shop.

Sam quickly said, "No. We're just checking the place out." More like staking it out.

"Yeah, we really like reading books. Go books!" Dean lamely punched his fist into the air with the last line.

The old man looked at them for a second, then nodded and headed back towards his desk. As he left shaking his head, Sam distinctly heard the man mutter, "Tourists..."

The Winchesters scanned the first floor of the bookshop, memorizing the layout of the place, getting a feel for their surroundings. They would break in tonight, when it was dark (because _everything_ must happen at night time), and they then would decide whether or not the place was really haunted, and what to do if it was.

* * *

**A/N: Yeah, we know that this chapter has nearly zilch to do with ghosts and the ghost-hunting process. That comes up next chapter, which is due Monday evening. We only hope that the humor will hold you over until then. **

**-Mistro & Daquiri**


	2. Ghost Kicks Butt

**Chapter 2**

Exactly fifteen minutes after the basement light of Number 50 Berkley Street was extinguished, two shadowy figures snuck through the back alley towards the fence behind the duplex. The shorter of the two grabbed onto the metal mesh and smoothly swung his body over the top. The taller, gangly shape followed behind, though slightly less gracefully. They crept across the backyard to the main floor window, pried it open, and climbed through.

"Where do you figure we should start looking?" Dean asked his brother.

"Upstairs, since we've already been all over the first floor and the owner seems to live downstairs," Sam replied.

"Upstairs it is, then," Dean began carefully threading his way around the back of the store, careful to be completely silent as he had been trained to do from an early age.

The second floor of the small building consisted of three main rooms, with miscellaneous junk strewn all about them.

"We should split up – you know, cover ground faster. We don't want the old man to wake up and find us here." Dean told Sam, turning towards the larger room on his left.

"Split up? What the hell, Dean! Have you _ever_ seen a horror movie? You know why everyone dies in them? Because they do a dumbass thing like split up!"

"Sam just shut your face and get looking, already. We'll be fine!" Dean shoved him in the direction of the room down the hall.

* * *

Dean was getting bored, poking around the room with his EMF meter, Brenda, and picking up nothing in the way of readings. He was sick of looking at these boxes; it was boring the hell out of him. All of a sudden the little lights on the top of his beloved creation stared flashing wildly. A noise sounded from the other side of the room, like a muffled footfall.

_Sam, _he thought, _No. Wait. Sam wouldn't be stupid enough to make _that_ much noise. _Dean reprimanded himself, slowly turning around to face the interior of the room. A dark, amorphous form was beginning to appear against the opposite wall, a black cloud coalescing into a vaguely human shape.

As it unhurriedly advanced towards him, becoming more solid with every movement, Dean shot confidently at it with his rocksalt-filled shotgun.

Nothing happened.

_Crap, _Dean thought, _that's always worked before. _

As the form continued to approach him he felt a sudden wave of nearly uncontrollable fear roll over him, and he fought the urge to scream.

"You think your 'scare tactics' are gonna work on me? I _hunt _creeps like you," Dean stalled, desperately trying to think of another plan. The rocksalt was supposed to work!

Dean's facade faltered – why did the thing look like his dad? For indeed, the cloud of darkness had begun to resemble John Winchester. _Very _strongly. The creature with John's blank face kept drawing nearer to him, and Dean was frozen to the spot. Only his eyes moved, flicking wildly around, searching for something to use.

_Why the hell didn't I bring my knives with me?_ he wondered.

"Sam?" Dean called softly for his brother, "Sammy?"

Suddenly his father – no, the ghost's hand shot out and grasped his throat in a crushing grip, lifting his feet slightly off the ground. Dean was really starting to panic now, and couldn't even manage to gasp out his brother's name. When he kicked at the specter, his foot went right through; although it had an all-too-real hold on his windpipe the rest of the thing was not solid. The edges of his vision were turning black, and Dean knew he'd pass out soon. In a last-ditch attempt, he kicked the wall behind him, trying to get his baby brother's attention.

* * *

Sam was wandering lethargically around the room Dean had shoved him into, wondering if his brother was having better luck in the 'finding-something-supernatural' department than he was.

Sam stopped abruptly, listening. There it was again, a bang from the adjacent room.

_Dean should know better than to make that much noise, _he thought. He bolted from the room to find his nearly unconscious sibling struggling weakly in the grip of...their father? Sam violently shook his head then pulled the trigger on his shotgun.

As the spray of rocksalt passed through the ghost's body, the phantasm turned to look at Sam through dead eyes. He couldn't suppress a gasp at the lack of...well, anything in his father's normally fiery eyes. One look before he dissolved into mist and disappeared. Dean's unmoving body falling to the floor brought Sam back to his senses. He rushed to his brother's side, gently turning him over to inspect what damage had been done.

"Dean?" he said in hushed tones, frightened by his brother's apparent lifelessness.

"That didn't work when I tried it," Dean would have sounded disgruntled if it weren't for his obviously labored breathing. Sam helped Dean to sit up after the latter failed in his attempt to do so on his own.

The younger Winchester was in the process of assisting the quickly recovering Dean to his feet when a loud crash was heard from downstairs. It sounded as if the front door had been hit with a battering ram.

"Shit," Dean breathed, fully regaining his breath. "Is there more than one?" He didn't know if he could handle another encounter tonight.

_What are we dealing with here? _Sam thought, but before he could respond to his brother's question, a pale apparition ran past their doorway. Purely on instinct, Sam fired his reloaded gun at it – and missed. He did, however, manage to blow a rather sizeable chunk out of the doorframe.

"Police!" The cry came from the side of the hall the pale creature had run to.

"Drop your weapons!" Another voice barked from the direction of the stairwell.

"Aw, _hell_ no!" Dean said disbelievingly. Cops. That was seriously the _last _thing they needed right now. To get arrested in the middle of an obviously big job.

"Any way out?" he asked Sammy hopefully, whilst frantically searching about the room for an alternate exit.

"Not unless you wanna jump two stories," Sam replied flatly, his tone indicating that he was enjoying this just as much as Dean was.

All out of options, with the footsteps of the police drawing nearer by the second, Dean and Sam accepted defeat and lowered their guns.

At the very instant they expected to see the silhouette of the cops in the doorway, the door to the room slammed shut and locked itself with a snap.

One of the cops in the hallway gave a terrified scream, followed by a gunshot. Sam and Dean dropped to the ground and peered under the door just in time to see the officer closest to the stairs hit the ground with a thud.

Turning to look at the other pair of feet visible from their level, Dean was the first to notice the vague, translucent figure right in front of the second, trembling police man.

"Guess you didn't kill the bastard after all, Sammy."

Before Sam could correct Dean on his usage of the name 'Sammy', the spirit in the hallway disappeared. The remaining cop gave a short, strangled cry, and ran to the stairway. The brothers watched as he tripped over his partner's corpse in the dark, and tumbled down the stairs. It might have been a comical sight if they hadn't heard the sickening _snap _of the man's neck breaking.

Both of the boys felt the telltale prickling in their spines and slowly turned around. The evil apparition was there behind them. They jumped to their feet.

"Doesn't he have _anything_ better to do?" Dean growled to Sam, annoyed.

"Apparently not," Sam tried the doorknob behind him. Still locked. _Of course. Like this thing would actually allow us to go. _

"I think we're taking the 'jump-and-hope-we-don't-die' option," Dean said as they began sliding along the wall towards the window.

But the spirit was coming towards them and Sam didn't think they'd make it out the window in time.

Suddenly the door flew open, startling all three within the room.

"GO TO YOUR ROOM!" a commanding voice boomed.

The ghost vanished instantly and the two young men were left facing the little old bookkeeper who stood in the doorway.


End file.
